A Decision to Regret
by philosophyluver
Summary: Ron Weasley learns the price of some harsh words.


Ok so my friend came up with this, and I had to write it down.

Disclaimer: I do not own HP.

Warning: Character death.

Bold is actual text from the book.

"**Somewhere near here," Harry muttered to himself. "Somewhere … somewhere…"**

**Deeper and deeper into the labyrinth he went, looking for objects he recognized from his one previous trip into the room. His breath was loud in his ears, and then his very soul seemed to shiver. There it was, right ahead, the blistered old cupboard in which he had hidden his old Potions book, and on top of it, the pockmarked stone warlock wearing a dusty old wig and what looked like an ancient discolored tiara.**

**He had already stretched out his hand, though he remained few feet away, when a voice behind him said, "Hold it, Potter."**

**He skidded to a halt and turned around. Crabbe and Goyle were standing behind him, shoulder to shoulder, wands pointing right at Harry. Through the small space between their jeering faces he saw Draco Malfoy.**

**"That's my wand you're holding, Potter," said Malfoy, pointing his own through the gap between Crabbe and Goyle.**

"**Not anymore," panted Harry, tightening his grip on the hawthorn wand. "Winners, keepers, Malfoy. Who's lent you theirs?"**

"**My mother," said Draco.**

**Harry laughed, though there was nothing very humorous about the situation. He could not hear Ron or Hermione anymore. They seemed to have run out of earshot, searching for the diadem.**

"**So how come you three aren't with Voldemort?" asked Harry.**

"**We're gonna be rewarded," said Crabbe. His voice was surprisingly soft for such an enormous person: Harry had hardly ever heard him speak before.**

**Harry almost say a quip there but didn't think that it would be right seeing as Crabbe would be dead soon.**

**Crabbe was speaking like a small child promised a large bag of sweets. "We 'ung back, Potter. We decided not to go. Decided to bring you to 'im."**

"**Good plan," said Harry in mock admiration. He could not believe that he ****was this close, and was going to be thwarted by Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle.**

**He began edging slowly backward toward the place where the Horcrux sat lopsided upon the bust. If he could just get his hands on it before the fight broke out...**

"**So how did you get in here?" he asked, trying to distract them.**

"**I virtually lived in the Room of Hidden Things all last year," said Malfoy, his voice brittle. "I know how to get in."**

"**We was hiding in the corridor outside," grunted Goyle. "We can do Diss-lusion Charms now! And then," his face split into a gormless grin, "you turned up right in front of us and said you was looking for a die-dum! What's a die-dum?"**

"**Harry?" Ron's voice echoed suddenly from the other side of the wall to Harry's right. "Are you talking to someone?"**

**With a whiplike movement, Crabbe pointed his wand at the fifty foot mountain of old furniture, of broken trunks, of old books and robes and unidentifiable junk, and shouted, "Descendo!"**

**The wall began to totter, then the top third crumbled into the aisle next door where Ron stood.**

"**Ron!" Harry bellowed, as somewhere out of sight Hermione screamed, and Harry heard innumerable objects crashing to the floor on the other side of the destabilized wall: He pointed his wand at the rampart, cried, "Finite!" and it steadied.**

"**No!" shouted Malfoy, staying Crabbe's arm as the latter made to repeat his spell. "If you wreck the room you might bury this diadem thing!"**

"**What's that matter?" said Crabbe, tugging himself free. "It's Potter the Dark Lord wants, who cares about a die-dum?"**

**"Potter came in here to get it," said Malfoy with ill-disguised impatience at the slow-wittedness of his colleagues. "so that must mean –"**

"'**Must mean'?" Crabbe turned on Malfoy with undisguised ferocity. "Who cares what you think? I don't take your orders no more, Draco. You an' your dad are finished****.**

**"Harry?" shouted Ron again, from the other side of the junk wad. "What's going on?"**

"**Harry?" mimicked Crabbe. "What's going on – no, Potter! Crucio!"**

**Harry had lunged for the tiara; Crabbe's curse missed him but hit the stone bust, which flew into the air; the diadem soared upward and then dropped out of sight in the mass of objects on which the bust had rested.**

"**STOP!" Malfoy shouted at Crabbe, his voice echoing through the enormous room. "The Dark Lord wants him alive –"**

"**So? I'm not killing him, am I?" yelled Crabbe, throwing off Malfoy's restraining arm. "But if I can, I will, the Dark Lord wants him dead anyway, what's the diff – ?"**

**A jet of scarlet light shot past Harry by inches: Hermione had run around the corner behind him and sent a Stunning Spell straight at Crabbe's head. It only missed because Malfoy pulled him out of the way.**

**"It's that Mudblood! Avada Kedavra!"**

**Harry saw Hermione dive aside, and his fury that Crabbe had aimed to kill wiped all else from his mind. He shot a Stunning Spell at Crabbe, who lurched out of the way, knocking Malfoy's wand out of his hand; it rolled out of sight beneath a mountain of broken furniture and bones.**

"**Don't kill him! DON'T KILL HIM!" Malfoy yelled at Crabbe and Goyle, who were both aiming at Harry: Their split second's hesitation was all Harry needed.**

"**Expelliarmus!"**

**Goyle's wand flew out of his hand and disappeared into the bulwark of objects beside him; Goyle leapt foolishly on the spot, trying to retrieve it; Malfoy jumped out of range of Hermione's second Stunning Spell, and Ron, appearing suddenly at the end of the aisle, shot a full Body-Bind Curse at Crabbe, which narrowly missed.**

**Crabbe wheeled around and screamed, "Avada Kedavra!" again. Ron leapt out of sight to avoid the jet of green light. The wand-less Malfoy cowered behind a three-legged wardrobe as Hermione charged toward them, hitting Goyle with a Stunning Spell as she came.**

"**It's somewhere here!" Harry yelled at her, pointing at the pile of junk into which the old tiara had fallen. "Look for it while I go and help R –"**

"**HARRY!" she screamed.**

**A roaring, billowing noise behind him gave him a moment's warning. He turned and saw both Ron and Crabbe running as hard as they could up the aisle toward them.**

"**Like it hot, scum?" roared Crabbe as he ran.**

**But he seemed to have no control over what he had done. Flames of ****abnormal size were pursuing them, licking up the sides of the junk bulwarks, which were crumbling to soot at** their touch.**"Aguamenti!" Harry bawled, but the jet of water that soared from the tip of his wand evaporated in the air.**

"**RUN!"**

**Malfoy grabbed the Stunned Goyle and dragged him along; Crabbe outstripped all of them, now looking terrified; Harry, Ron, and Hermione pelted along in his wake, and the fire pursued them. It was not normal fire; Crabbe had used a curse of which Harry had no knowledge. As they turned a corner the flames chased them as though they were alive, sentient, intent upon killing them. Now the fire was mutating, forming a gigantic pack of**

**fiery beasts: Flaming serpents, chimaeras, and dragons rose and fell and rose again, and the detritus of centuries on which they were feeding was thrown up into the air into their fanged mouths, tossed high on clawed feet, before being consumed by the inferno.**

**Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle had vanished from view: Harry, Ron and Hermione stopped dead; the fiery monsters were circling them, drawing closer and closer, claws and horns and tails lashed, and the heat was solid as a wall around them.**

**"What can we do?" Hermione screamed over the deafening roars of the fire. "What can we do?"**

"**Here!"**

**Harry seized a pair of heavy-looking broomsticks** **from the nearest pile of junk and threw one to Ron, who pulled Hermione onto it behind him. Harry swung his leg over the second broom and, with hard kicks to the ground, they soared up in the air, missing by feet the horned beak of a flaming raptor that snapped its jaws at them. The smoke and heat were becoming overwhelming: Below them the cursed fire was consuming the contraband of generations of hunted students, the guilty outcomes of a thousand banned experiments, the secrets of the countless souls who had sought refuge in the room. Harry couldnot see a trace of Malfoy, Crabbe, or Goyle anywhere. He swooped as low as he dare over the marauding monsters of flame to try to find them, but there was nothing but fire: What a terrible way to die. . . . He had never wanted this. . . .**

"**Harry, let's get out, let's get out!" bellowed Ron, though it was impossible to see where the door was through the black smoke.**

**And then Harry heard a thin, piteous human scream from amidst the terrible commotion, the thunder of devouring flame.**

"**It's – too – dangerous – !" Ron yelled, but Harry wheeled in the air.**

**His glasses giving his eyes some small protection from the smoke, he raked the firestorm below, seeking a sign of life, a limb or a face that was not yet charred like wood. . . .**

**And he saw them: Malfoy with his arms around the unconscious Goyle, the pair of them perched on a fragile tower of charred desks, and Harry dived. Malfoy saw him coming and raised one arm, but even as Harry grasped it he knew at once that it was no good. Goyle was too heavy and Malfoy's hand, covered in sweat, slid instantly out of Harry's –**

"**IF WE DIE FOR THEM, I'LL KILL YOU, HARRY!" roared Ron's voice. **Harry thought about it for a moment.

"You're right, Ron. We should be out saving innocents, not some pathetic Death Eater wannabes," He spat venemously.

-Fast forward to scene in woods-

**He was flying facedown on the ground again. The smell of the forest filled his nostrils. He could feel the cold hard ground beneath his cheek, and the hinge of his glasses which have been knocked sideways by the fall cutting into his temple. Every inch of him ached, and the place where Killing Curse had hit him felt like the bruise of an iron-clad did not stir, but he remained exactly where he had fallen, with his left arm bent out at an akward angle and his mouth gaping.**

**He had expected to hear cheer of triumph and jubilation at his death, but instead hurried footsteps, whispers, and solicitous murmurs filled the air.**

**"My Lord... my Lord..."It was Bellatrix's voice, and she spoke as if to a lover.**

**Harry did not dare open his eyes, but allowed his other senses to explore his predicament. He knew that his wand was still stowed beneath his robes because he could feel it pressed between his chest and the ground.** **A slight cushioning effect in the area of his stomach told him that the Invisibility Cloak was also there, stuffed out of sight.**

**"My Lord..."**

**"That will do," said Voldemort's voice.**

**More footsteps. Several people were backing away from the same spot. Desperate to see what was happening and why, Harry opened his eyes by a milimeter.**

**Voldemort seemed to be getting to his feet. Various Death Eaters were hurrying away from him, returning to the crowd lining the clearing. Bellatrix alone remained behind, kneeling beside Voldemort.**

**Harry closed his eyes again and considered what he had seen. The Death Eaters have been buddled around Voldemort, who seem to have fallen to the ground. Something had happened when he had hit Harry with the Killing Curse. Had Voldemort too collapsed? It seemed like it. And both of them had briefly fallen unconcious and both of them had now returned. . .**

**"My Lord, let me -"**

**"I do not require assitance," said Voldemort coldly, and though he could not see it, Harry pictured Bellatrix withdrawing a helpful hand. "The boy . . . Is he dead?"**

**There was a complete silence in the clearing. Nobody approached Harry, but he felt their concentraded gaze; it seemed to press him harder into the ground, and he was terrified a finger or an eyelid might twitch.**

**"You," said Voldemort, and there was a bang and a small shrick of pain. "Examine him. Tell me whether he is dead."**

**Harry did not know who had been sent to verify. He could only lie there, with his heart thumping traitorously, and wait to be examined, but at the same time nothing, small comfort through it was, that Voldemort was wary of approaching him, that Voldemort suspected that all had not gone to plan . . . .**

**Hands, softer than he had been expecting, touched Harry's face, and felt his heart. He could hear the woman's fast breathing, her pounding of life against his ribs.**

**"Is Draco alive? Is he in the castle?"**

The voice was motherly and full of concern, the same way sounded when she met Harry each summer. Remorse welled up in chest. As much as he wanted to lie, he couldn't bring himself to. Barely moving his lips, he whispered "no."

Narcissa felt as though a cold fist had wrapped around her heart. Voldemort's fist. "Leglimens," she whispered inaudibly. Her mind suddenly filled with terrifying images of her baby being consumed by his best friend's fiendfyre, of Harry refusing to save him. The dread in her heart was replaced with fury. "My Lord," she said in a steely voice, cold and even, "he lives."

Voldemort's eyes filled with fury. Grasping the wand so tight it nearly cracked, he aimed it at Harry's heart. Praying with what was left of his heart, he spoke in a clear, high voice. "Avada Kedavra."


End file.
